Deep Throat Is The New Nixon

May 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Culture, Richard Nixon, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

Michael Kinsley argues that if Sen. Obama should be criticized for associating with Weatherman William Ayers, he’s in good company:

If Obama’s relationship with Ayers, however tangential, exposes Obama as a radical himself, or at least as a man with terrible judgment, he shares that radicalism or terrible judgment with a comically respectable list of Chicagoans and others–including Republicans and conservatives–who have embraced Ayers and [wife Bernardine] Dohrn as good company, good citizens, even experts on children’s issues.

Even we boomers at TNN are tiring of this one. But once more, just for drill: If Sen. McCain had a relationship with an unrepentant abortion clinic bomber that was no more intimate than Obama’s acquaintance with Ayers, it would be a gigantic issue, and appropriately so. Why our early-21st century culture would less forgiving of violence committed or planned against innocent people to protest a war than of violence against a purported enemy of unborn children is too big for a Saturday morning. Someone call St. Augustine!

Kinsley also writes,

Other charges against Ayers and Dohrn were dropped because the evidence was tainted by the Nixon Administration’s illegal wiretaps. Ayers put it well: “Guilty as hell, and free as a bird. It’s a great country.”

The tainted evidence actually came from the illegal black-bag jobs ordered by Mark Felt, the FBI official who was passed over for promotion by President Nixon and became the Washington Post’s famous source. Thanks in part to angry, guilty Mark Felt, Mr. Nixon resigned, and William Ayers went free. It was a great but confused country.

Scott McClellan Is A Tool

May 31, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment 

The Urban Dictionary defines “tool” as “someone who is a complete idiot; one who is used by other people, and usually doesn’t even realize it; someone who can’t think for themselves; an asshat.”

Merriam-Webster defines “tool” as “a means to an end”.

It appears that former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan qualifies as a tool in both the colloquial and classical senses of the word.

It has been famously observed that in a democracy the people get the government they deserve. Perhaps a corollary of that statement is that a White House gets the Press Secretary it deserves. That’s the case made in today’s New York Post by Rich Lowry:

Likable, but maladroit and plodding, he was the perfect spokesman for the administration of Harriet Miers, Michael Brown and Al Gonzales. For anyone who doubted that President Bush too often valued loyalty over talent, there was McClellan stumbling through daily briefings to embody the point more eloquently than he ever could have stated it.

The backstory of Mr. McClellan’s book is provided by William Tate in today’s American Thinker. Mr. Tate deconstructs an AP article that describes some of the anomalies in the way What Happened became a bestseller.

For example: Mr. McClellan’s initial proposal was turned down by several publishers who were so unimpressed they didn’t even bother to meet with him; the publisher who bought the book had publicly stated that he had no interest in publishing a pro-Bush book and didn’t read the McClellan proposal or sample material; people who read the original proposal and sample chapters say they have little or no connection with what was finally printed under Mr. McClellan’s name.

PublicAffairs editor Lisa Kaufman confirmed to the AP that the proposal McClellan shopped around was nothing like the book that plunges the knife into his benefactor’s back. “The original proposal was somewhat general,” Kaufman admits, “so before making an offer on the book we talked to Scott at some length.”

It takes little imagination to gather how the conversation between George Soros’s publisher and a disgruntled former Bush administration official hawking his unwritten memoirs, still unsold after having gone through the tope tier of publishers, went.

But imagination isn’t needed.

A book’s editor and its author work extremely closely–with the author sweating over every word, every detail, and the editor helping shape the pacing and overall tone of the manuscript. Kaufman told the AP that as McClellan wrote the book the “tone began to be directed toward issues and events that some people would rather he not be straightforward and candid about.” (Emphasis added.)

PublicAffairs reportedly paid McClellan a $75,000 advance. An advance is the only part of an author’s financial deal with a publisher that’s guaranteed. It is literally an advance on the author’s royalties. If the book sells enough copies that the author’s royalties exceed the advance, the author will make more money.

Some have argued that McClellan’s small advance negates the financial incentive as a reason for McClellan to bring forward these charges, when the opposite is true. When George Tenet or Bill Clinton are offered millions in advances, they’ve already made their money. The books will probably not “earn out” (pay the author more than the advance) no matter how many copies are sold. With a small advance, the author is under pressure to sell as many copies as possible.

With only a $75,000 advance, and working with a publisher and editor who were more interested in producing a book written by a disgruntled former Bush staffer than they were in the book McClellan had proposed, McClellan had every financial incentive to give them exactly the book they wanted.

And he apparently did.

According to the AP article, “Rival publishers say they had no sense that McClellan would make such explosive observations.”

Could that be because the proposal McClellan presented them, the book he set out to write before financial pressures and a left-wing publisher took over, didn’t contain them? And how is the public now expected to believe them?

Recommended Reading

May 31, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

In tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review, 20 writers recommend works of fiction, poetry and nonfiction for the three candidates to read. Somewhat unsurprisingly, two of the writers suggest that Sen. Hillary Clinton read Macbeth. But there are a number of interesting and unusual choices.

Featured Articles — May 31, 2008

May 31, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Al Qaeda on the Run By Wall Street Journal Editors
A year ago in July, a National Intelligence Estimate warned that al Qaeda had “protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability,” meaning it could be poised to strike America again.

Sexism, not Obama, beat Hillary By Mark Steyn
“Someone wins, someone doesn’t win, that’s life,” Nancy Kopp, Maryland’s treasurer, told The Washington Post. “But women don’t want to be totally dissed.” She was talking about her political candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Win the War? Yes, We Can! by Matthew Continetti
Don’t look now, but evidence of progress in the war on terror is just about everywhere. Last week CIA director Michael Hayden noted some U.S. accomplishments for the Washington Post: “Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.

George Bush got the team he deserved By David Frum
Except maybe for MSNBC’s wild-eyed commentator Keith Olbermann, nobody in politics or media seems to have a good word to say for Scott McClellan, the former George W. Bush press secretary turned ferocious Bush critic.

McClellan’s Revenge By Robert Novak
Republican insiders see the bitter criticism in Scott McClellan’s memoir, “What Happened,” as a payback for his abrupt firing as White House press secretary in the spring of 2006.

China’s Cyber-Militia by Shane Harris
Chinese hackers pose a clear and present danger to U.S. government and private-sector computer networks and may be responsible for two major U.S. power blackouts.

Hard-Line Lunacy on Cuba By Eugene Robinson
For nearly five decades, the United States has pursued a policy toward Cuba that could be described as incredibly stupid.

As a terrible landmark looms, it’s time for realism in Afghanistan By Charles Moore
Ninety-seven British soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 2001, most in the past two years. At current rates, it is, unfortunately, a good bet that the 100 mark will be passed in the coming month. Then people will challenge the Government: “What is the point of being in Afghanistan?” How should ministers reply?

The Argument for Nominating Hillary By Lanny J. Davis
After the votes are in from Puerto Rico tomorrow and South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will be able to make a facts-based case that they represent a significant majority of grass-roots Democrats.

It’s Being Compared To Nixon-Meets-Elvis

May 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Bush Administration, Culture | 1 Comment 

The Secretary of State has already had songs written about her by Steve Earle and Jagger-Richards. Here she is with KISS. You can’t make this stuff up.

Dean Of Watergate

May 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Nixon Administration figures, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

James Rosen on Fox News, saying John Dean ordered the Watergate break-in. Author of The Strong Man: John Mitchell And The Secrets Of Watergate, Rosen will be at the Nixon Library on June 17.

Watch What I Do Not What I Say

May 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

According to Liz Smith’s column today:

SUSAN SARANDON, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her TV movie “Bernard and Doris,” is still not a contented soul. She says if John McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, “It’s a critical time, but I have faith in the American people.”

Perhaps when she arrives in Toronto or Turin or wherever she decides to resettle, she can look up Barbra Streisand, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Eddie Vedder, and the several other celebrities who announced that they couldn’t live in America any longer if George W. Bush was elected and/or re-elected.

The Few The Proud The Withdrawn

May 30, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Culture | Leave a Comment 

A recruitment ad for Britain’s Royal Marines commandos has been withdrawn from showing in UK cinemas after a complaint by the Malayasian government that it portrays its citizens as terrorists.The elaborate ad, which cost in the neighborhood of one million pounds to make, was actually shot in the neighborhood (anonymous unless you are adept at identifying particular patches of sand and palm trees) of neighboring Brunei. The actor playing the terrorist was from Malaysia and used his native Malay language to speak his line: “I’m the most evil man in the world. Come fight with me. I will kill you all.”

Dole’s email to McClellan

May 30, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment 

Jonathan Martin at Politico.com was the first to break the news that yesterday former Sen. Bob Dole emailed former White House press spokesperson Scott McClellan concerning the latter’s book What Happened.  Sen. Dole’s comments about the book and its author – he begins, “There are miserable creatures like you in every administration” –  are well worth reading and can be found in their entirety here.  (Martin’s post also links to another email in which Dole explains why he feels so strongly about McClellan’s rush to publish in an election year.)

Featured Articles — May 30, 2008

May 30, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Globalization and Its Discontents By Henry Kissinger
For the first time in history, a genuinely global economic system has come into being with prospects of heretofore unimagined well-being. At the same time – paradoxically – the process of globalization tempts a nationalism that threatens its fulfillment.

Moving Toward Energy Rationing By Charles Krauthammer
I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’m a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can’t be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.

Help Russia Help Us By Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn
The priority of our national security policy must be to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This task is impossible without the cooperation of Russia.

The Libertarian Jesus? By Michael Gerson
Jesus was neither a leftist revolutionary nor a right-wing ideologue.

Italy’s Nuclear Job By Henry Sokolski
Europe should let the market decide what the best energy investment is.

The Reality Situation By David Brooks
You are now engaged in a campaign debate over whether to talk with Iran. As I’m sure you both know, this is a political exercise that will have little relevance should you actually take office.

But Is It True? By Peggy Noonan
Leave him alone. He wrote a book. It is true or untrue, accurately reported or not. If not, this will no doubt be revealed. It is honestly meant and presented, or not. Look to the assertions, argue them, weigh and ponder.

Healing the wounds of Democrats’ sexism By Geraldine Ferraro
LAST YEAR at the beginning of the presidential primary season, Democrats were giddy with excitement. Not only did we have an embarrassment of riches in our candidates but we had two historic candidacies to enjoy. Once and for all our country would show that racism and sexism were not part of our 21st-century DNA.

The President Has Kept Us Safe By Thane Rosenbaum
It’s preposterous to think Bush policy has nothing to do with why we haven’t been attacked again.

Dear President Medvedev By Tatyana Morozov and Alyona Morozov
Our mother and neighbors were sacrificed to start a war in Chechnya.

Hezbollah: The “A” Team of Terrorists

May 29, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under War on Terror | Leave a Comment 

According to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Hezbollah embarrasses al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization. In terms of technology, discipline, and geographic breadth, bin-Laden’s organization is dwarfed to the minor leagues:

“Someone described Hezbollah like the A-team of terrorists in terms of capabilities, in terms of range of weapons they have, in terms of internal discipline,” Chertoff told FOX News. “To be honest, they make Al Qaeda look like a minor league team.

“They have been more disciplined, and they’ve been in some senses more restrained in the kinds of attacks they carry out … in recent years, but that’s not something we can take for granted,” he warned.

This comes to surprise as al-Qaeda is seemingly erratic and variable in ideology and organization. With the initial invasion of Afghanistan and the recent turnaround in Iraq, al-Qaeda has largely lost its base of institutional legitimacy. Occasional television appearances by deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the indefinite nature of Bin-Laden’s mortality has devolved all central leadership. And today, there are many faces of al-Qaeda, reminiscent of the California gangland wannabes that imitate the crips and bloods.

Hezbollah on the other hand has both terrorized and negotiated their power into Lebanon, devoid of major political efficacy within its borders.

With financial and political support from Syria and Iran, Hezbollah’s power plays aren’t predicated on the demographic trends that preluded the Taif Agreement of 1989, and the handshakes and smiles with newly elected President Michel Suleiman are not predicated on the peaceful transfer of power evident in modern liberal democracies.

Accordingly, Afghanistan might have been a base for al-Qaeda, but they never had the capacity to invade and occupy entire countries:

Suleiman’s election is not the product of a democratic compromise between a majority and an opposition; it is the product of threats and violence. The fancy swearing-in ceremony yesterday could not have taken place without the agreement of Hezbollah, which delayed the selection of a president by seven months. Hezbollah conditioned its acceptance on the establishment of a national unity government in which it and its partners will have 11 ministers. This grants Hezbollah veto power over key government decisions, since the Lebanese constitution requires important decisions to be approved by a two-thirds majority.

Hezbollah also won a change in the elections law, which gives its supporters a much greater chance of getting their candidates into parliament in the election planned for next year. In addition, the question of Hezbollah’s right to function as an autonomous militia has been removed from the agenda, replaced by a declaration that Hezbollah’s guns will never again be aimed at fellow Lebanese. And without the agreement of the Lebanese government, any international attempt to disarm Hezbollah will be seen as illegitimate.

Huh?

May 29, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

A mystifying report appears on the ABC News blog this afternoon: the members of the press corps accompanying Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign just got an email informing them they could sign up to travel with the candidate for nine more days – up to June 6, three days after the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana. So much for the speculation around the blogosphere that Hillary might bail out on Sunday, the day after the Democratic National Committee is widely expected to reject her argument that the results of the Michigan and Florida primaries (and the resulting delegates) should be accepted.  What could she have up her sleeve this time?

A Third-Party Candidate Who Might Have Won

May 29, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008, History, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

The recent presidential nomination of former Georgia congressman Bob Barr by the Libertarian Party puts the political periphery on center stage – at least for a few moments – during this already tedious campaign year. While it’s way too early to even speculate about Barr’s prospects for success, we are reminded that our two-party system hasn’t always functioned without would-be spoilers.

Have third-party candidacies ever made much of a difference?

Actually they have – and, what’s more – there’s at least one case where such a candidacy could have made all the difference. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Probably the most famous attempted political end run in history was made by a former president – that fact itself lending it credibility. When Theodore Roosevelt failed in his attempt to wrest the Republican nomination away from his successor and former friend William Howard Taft in 1912, he bullied his way onto ballots across the nation on the Progressive Party ticket. He lost the election, but finished in second place and ahead of Taft. Of course, he also ensured that the Democrat Woodrow Wilson would receive a plurality and move into the White House.

In 1924, Robert La Follette ran as a progressive, as well. He lost too, and it didn’t make much of a difference to Calvin Coolidge or the country.

The 1948 campaign played out with the kind of drama we are seeing these days as incumbent Harry S. Truman held onto the Democratic nomination in spite of defections from the left and right. Former Vice President Henry Wallace left (far left) the fold to run as a progressive and Strom Thurmond led the segregation-loving Dixiecrats into the fall campaign.

That Truman held on to win a second term is amazing considering the state of his party that year. This should serve as a reminder that party disunity doesn’t necessarily lead to ultimate defeat.

George C. Wallace (no relation to Henry – in fact, no resemblance whatsoever) ran a reasonably effective third-party campaign in 1968, winning five southern states and Ross Perot got a lot of popular votes in 1992 (19% of total) and 1996 (8%). Then there’s Ralph Nader, who captured more than 100,000 votes in Florida in 2000. Few doubt that if he had not run, Al Gore would have received enough of those votes to win the state and therefore the election.

But as I said, there is one third-party candidacy that never actually happened – but could have been very successful if circumstances had allowed it to play out.

Huey Pierce Long was, by 1935, a former Governor of Louisiana (but still very much in control of the statehouse there) and a sitting U.S. Senator. He had campaigned hard for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, but found himself increasingly disillusioned by the president’s politics and policies. He wanted a much more radical approach to confronting the Great Depression.

The poster-child for populist politics, Long was a master of demagoguery and knew how to manipulate the media of his day – not to mention the masses. He had charisma, savvy, a vast following, and the makings of a national political organization (“Share Our Wealth”) that was becoming a cultural movement.

He was on the cover of Time Magazine in April of 1935 and was described in its pages as “a cross between an unscrupulous Bryan and a political Barnum.” He was quoted as saying: “There positively will be a Share-the-Wealth ticket in the field in the 1936 campaign. No doubt about that. That ticket will be headed by a man who won’t go back on his word.”

Of course, he was talking about himself. He was even writing a book called: “My First Days in the White House.”

The Share Our Wealth Society was based on a sinisterly simplistic and woefully flawed scheme to confiscate the wealth of the richest Americans and distribute it to the rest of the people. The plan included promises of a guaranteed annual income for all Americans. This, of course, resonated with a lot of people – though few took time to do the math. By the summer of 1935 the movement had more than 7.5 million members and 27,000 local chapters from coast to coast.

At 41, Long was the political rock star of his day, one poll finding him to be America’s most attractive man. Tarzan came in second.

Huey Long was also a fierce opponent of Big Oil. His chronic battles in The Pelican State against Standard Oil caused many to see him as a modern day David fighting the Goliaths who taunted them and their hungry stomachs. The Kingfish, as he enjoyed being called, had given them new roads, free text books, and had done so by helping the little guy at the expense of those he painted as big bullies.

The flamboyant Senator was making many people in power very nervous – including Mr. Roosevelt. Some called Long a communist; others thought him to be a fascist. What he really was resembled an unprincipled populist. Many feared, with good reason, that he might become the catalyst for something in this country similar to the völkisch movement that Hitler had used to gain power in Germany.

President Roosevelt actually commissioned a secret poll, one of the first such studies ever done, to get a sense of the political strength of Long and his ideas. He also moved to outflank his potential foe by moving even further to the left, recommending legislation that pandered to the Share-Our-Wealth mindset.

FDR considered Huey Long to be “one of the two most dangerous men in America.” The other, by the way, was Douglas MacArthur.

As the summer of 1935 waned, Huey Long was the undisputed political leader of a growing and vocal group of discontented people, but he wasn’t the only star in the constellation of forces arrayed against the President of the United States. Father Charles Coughlin, a vociferous priest who was a master of the air waves speaking to a radio audience of 40 million weekly (this in a day when our country’s population had not yet reached 130 million), was also considering a break with FDR by this time.

The very idea that Long and Coughlin might get together to challenge him from the left clearly concerned Mr. Roosevelt. In early September of 1935, FDR invited the radio priest to his home in Hyde Park, New York in an attempt to keep the popular broadcaster in his camp and avoid a political nightmare in 1936.

By the time Father Coughlin was met by Joseph P. Kennedy (who was being used by FDR as a liaison to Coughlin) at the local train station at 3:00 a.m. on September 10th, the news had long made its way around the country that Huey Long had been shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and was fighting for his life. Coughlin was with the president later that day when word came that Long had died.

That was that.

Father Coughlin did break away from Roosevelt two months later. And in 1936 there was a third party attempt to win the White House. Coughlin teamed with Long’s self-anointed protégé, an anti-Semitic preacher named Gerald L.K. Smith, as well as Francis Townsend, who promoted a scheme to provide old-age pensions to the elderly. They in turn orchestrated the nomination of William Lemke, a congressman from North Dakota, to run for president on the ticket of something called the Union Party. But this was a hoarse whisper compared to the undeniably loud cry that would have been made had Long lived to challenge Roosevelt.

Had Huey Long run in 1936 as a third-party candidate, he just might have won. Or, at the least, he could have taken enough votes away from FDR to give us President Alf Landon.

Oh – and the Kingfish’s book, “MY FIRST DAYS IN THE WHITE HOUSE,” was published posthumously. – DRS

Gawking Made Easier

May 29, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under New Reviews | Leave a Comment 

For the few TNN readers who don’t yet make a drop-by at Gawker a part of their daily media circuit, here are links to two of today’s stories.

The first is a provocative behind-the-scenes anonymously-sourced bit of gossip about how Chris Matthews bust a gasket because Arianna Huffington is supposed to have hired a private eye to spy on some major (blond? overbearing?) cable news star. Tucker Carlson makes an amusing cameo appearance.

Well. Who on Earth would Arianna be spying on? Russert? That would make Chris very, very mad, because he hearts Little Big Tim v v much. But jeez, what is there to even spy on with Russert? Who cares?

Anyway, Chris continued to be more or less a pain, though he came back and apologized for the outburst. And Tucker was apparently a real charmer! Friendly and joking! We’ve long known him to be an idiotic pain-in-the-ass, but sociopathic narcissists are often totally fun dudes when they’ve no reason to feel threatened or challenged. Unlike constantly self-doubting Chris, Tucker loves himself.

The second is of the you-couldn’t-make-this-up variety. Apparently significant numbers of graduating seniors at Northwestern University are up in arms because Mayor Richard Daley is slated to be their commencement speaker.

Students say they feel let down because the choice, announced this week, doesn’t carry the cachet of recent speakers, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, or even last year’s speaker, Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld.

Perhaps the most unbelievable part of this Northwestern story is that Henry Bienen, the school’s President, sent an email to one of the student protesters:

“Matthew, grow up,’ Bienen wrote back Wednesday morning. Bienen’s e-mail added: ‘You also sound like a very unhappy person. I am sorry for that. Hopefully things will improve for you over the years.’”

Cutting A Senator Some Major Slack

May 29, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

Over in the Washington Post’s offices on 15th Street, Barack Obama is not only liked. He is well-liked.

On the front page of today’s paper, Perry Bacon Jr. puts a very positive —almost a happy— face on what in other hands (or about another candidate) could have been a very negative article.

For candidate X, the headline would be: “On Policy, X Comes Up Dry”. But for Senator Obama the glass is at least half full and the headline reads: “On Policy, Obama Breaks Little New Ground”.

Mr Bacon even manages some positive spin for the fact that the junior Illinois Senator decided to make a virtue of the adversity that his lack of experience would otherwise represent. And the “O” word never even crosses the writer’s mind; in the Obama universe, O stands for Oprah not Opportunism.

Already famous for his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama entered the Senate with more than the usual aspirations about the impact he could have.

So in 2005, he had his office arrange informal seminars so that experts on health care, the economy, energy and education could brief him. “I’m not running for president,” he told a group of experts at his Capitol Hill office in the spring of 2006. But he said he had a “national voice” and wanted to use it.

When Obama changed his mind and decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate, however, he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, “We’ve had plenty of plans, Democrats,” and in another: “Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web.” He cast his “new kind of politics” in terms of his ability to transcend divisions and his unique biography and offered few differences on issues from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates.

The McCain argument (and, for at least the next few days and possibly weeks before she boards the Obama express, the Clinton argument) is that wanting change is no bad thing, but you still have to stand for at least something…..some thing. But who knows? Maybe that kind of linear thinking belongs back in the Gutenberg Galaxy. Maybe Senator Obama’s candidacy will turn out to be not only post-modern but post-political.

In the meantime he can still depend on getting by with a little help from his friends in the media.

The Smell Of Napalm In the Morning!

May 29, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Culture | Leave a Comment 

Roger Cohen in the New York Times:

Once again, idealism and youth involvement in politics are awakening in the United States, gathered around a thirst for change and the rejection of a status quo Bush successor. We’ll see what comes of these stirrings. I suspect they have the wind at their back. I hope so. I’ve been feeling wistful. May is almost over and my head’s been full of 40-year-old images — overturned cars in the Latin Quarter, Soviet tanks rolling into the Czech capital, the pistol pointed at Robert Kennedy, Tommie Smith’s raised black-gloved fist at the Mexico Olympics, Jimi and Janis in their glory — images that engraved themselves even on a 13-year-old’s mind.

Didn’t Sen. Clinton get in trouble for talk like that? RFK at the Ambassador Hotel and Jimi at Woodstock don’t belong in same nostalgic pastiche. Cohen’s point is that some good came from the sixties. But I wonder how common such pining for the good old days of chaos and violence is among our early-50s cohort, especially in the media. Andrew Sullivan says this is the weakness of elite conservative baby boomers, putting too much stock in the saliency of culture-war politics. Guess they’re not the only ones. In any event, we’ll see in November if the idealistic young hordes turn out.

Of Weasels and Men

May 29, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Bush Administration | Leave a Comment 

Why all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one and a half years after he left the administration. He is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.
—–White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Richard A. Clarke, 22 March 2004

Some are born weasels. Some achieve weasel status. Some have weasel status thrust upon them. The Nixon administration was hardly a weasel-free zone. Indeed, the biggest one still flourishes today as a best selling author and ideological arbiter.

Now Scott McClellan, of all people, has emerged virtually overnight as a worldclass weasel thanks to his book What Happened. The former Press Secretary reveals that he really didn’t like or approve of what was going on around him. He cuts the President some condescending slack —innocent because clueless— but settles some serious scores with his erstwhile superiors and colleagues.

What Happened, which was published yesterday, is already #1 on today’s Amazon.com bestseller list — only the latest proof that no bad deed goes unrewarded.

The media, ready to wield any stick with which to beat the Bush administration, has been breathlessly reporting the book’s main charges and zingers. But in the rush to credit Mr. McClellan’s claims, the fact that he was generally considered to be the most ineffective press secretary of the last several decades has gone unnoted.

Mr. McClellan was patently punching above his weight. He was instinctively defensive and essentially inarticulate — a double whammy for any Press Secretary. The daily deer-in-the-headlight quality that characterized his three year tenure made little impression and left little legacy. Thanks to the sheer mastery of Tony Snow and the sleek skills of Dana Perino, the embarrassing doldrums of those McClellan years 2003-2006 already seem like a distant memory.

Mr. McClellan was less than gruntled despite his high visibility and ostensibly exalted status. One had only to watch his excruciating briefings to see the generally low regard, and frequently the outright contempt, in which the press held him. Now it turns out that he saw himself as the Rodney Dangerfield of the West Wing —disrespected on both sides of the Press Room podium — left out of loops by his employers and had for breakfast by his consumers.

What Happened already has a subtitle (“Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”), but “Revenge of the Nerd” might be more apt. Its 400 pages are meant to be a double-edged sword neatly settling two scores with one swoop: criticizing the administration for what it got away with and criticizing the media for letting it get away with it. So far, the reporting has tended to focus on the administration’s part. Go figure.

Why am I, who has no dog in this hunt, and who hasn’t read the book, weighing in in this way? The answer to that question is easy. When someone (a) publishes a book, (b) in the run up to an election, (c) that completely reverses everything he has said and done publicly to date, my weasel detector is immediately activated. A worst case scenario presents itself — that a weak and wounded man has found a way to settle some scores for profit. But a best case scenario — that a weak and wounded man has allowed himself to be manipulated by others into settling some scores for profit — isn’t any more appealing.

Isn’t it possible that Mr. McClellan has honestly come by his change of heart as a result of some serious soul searching and that he feels a compulsion to share it with his fellow citizens for $27.95? Almost anything is possible.

Featured Articles — May 29, 2008

May 29, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

Obama’s Revisionist History By Karl Rove
This week’s minor controversy about Barack Obama’s claim that an uncle liberated Auschwitz was quickly put to rest by his campaign. They conceded that it was a great uncle whose unit liberated Buchenwald, 500 miles away.

All About Me By Victor Davis Hanson
Here is how our baby-boom generation solves problems……

The Quit-Iraq Time Travelers By Ralph Peters
WHENEVER retreat-now activists or their favored presidential aspirant are confronted with our progress in Iraq, their stock reply is, “Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq in 2003.”

McCain’s Question Time By George Will
Most improvements make matters worse because most new ideas are regrettable, including this not-quite-new one from John McCain’s speech depicting how improved America will be after four years of him: “I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the prime minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.”

Blame Congress for High Oil Prices By Mackubin Thomas Owens
Our solons have needlessly restricted the supply of energy.

Flawed Victory By Washington Post Editors
The Supreme Court stretches the law to help victims of workplace retaliation.

Flack Attack By John Dickerson
Scott McClellan burns the Bush administration.

Can Charity Change China? By Leslie Hook
The earthquake unleashed forces beyond party control.

Terrorism and the Olympics By Nicholas D. Kristoff
We should encourage China to tolerate peaceful protesters even as it prosecutes terrorists. But instead of clarifying that distinction, we have helped China blur it.

Pro-War Obama?

May 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Iraq War, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

The Boston Phoenix’s Steven Stark lays out a bifurcated strategy for Sen. McCain:

To win in November, he will have to run one of the best campaigns in modern history. How can he do it? In the immortal words of former California governor Jerry Brown, by running “left and right at the same time.”

I’ve been wondering if Sen. Obama might do the same thing by tilting right on the war. His former advisor, Samantha Powers, floated the idea in March that he might not govern as he has campaigned when it comes to Iraq. Tom Hayden fretted around the same time that Obama was already trying too hard to sound tough. Pundits appear to take this for granted, too.

After the trip to Iraq that McCain will have shamed him into, Obama might signal a willingness to leave troops on the ground longer than he’d planned in order to capitalize on the military and political gains U.S. and Iraqi forces have achieved as the result of the surge. He would risk losing the antiwar fringe while blunting McCain’s advantage among hawkish independents — a decent tradeoff if he plays it right. It would take some doing to avoid looking weak or opportunistic (his miraculous speechwriters would be working overtime), but even riskier for Obama is the appearance of resisting a “yes, we can win” Iraq policy in the face of growing public optimism about the prospects for success.

Where Was He When We Needed Him?

May 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, News media | Leave a Comment 

Mort Kondracke comes right out and says the media want Sen. Clinton out of the race.

Next Page »